I is for India

People ask me if I liked India.  I never know quite what to say. Indiawas the most different country I’ve ever been to. There is no comparing it to any place else. In India, I learned that begging it the number one profession.  I saw children with elephantitis, one leg or arm, giant. I was told this helped them to be better beggars. On night busses back to the ship, I noticed the sidewalks I’d been walking that day were now covered with sleeping bodies. I wondered if any were dead. I felt constantly dirty, filthy. I’d blow my nose and black would come out. I could not wear my contacts. I brought granola bars and tried to consist on those for the five days we were there to avoid the dreaded Delhibelly. I didn’t avoid it. The noise in the streets was constant, like background music that never changes. Indiawas full, packed, overflowing with people. I’d never seen so many people in one place.

I watched sacred cows roaming aimlessly among the people, adorned in gold.   I glimpsed beautiful women covered in intricate saris. I heard languages that sounded like songs.  I witnessed kindness on every corner.  I photographed the Taj Mahal. There is a picture of my in the only long skirt I brought, standing in front of the shallow pool in front of the tomb. My arms are raised up and out saying, ‘this is where I am.’ I am joyful and unbelieving.  I do not think I look like me. I held babies whose mothers or sisters or brothers thought it might be good luck to have the white girl touch her. I road rickshaws to markets I had no intention of going to. I wept, I smiled, I tried to understand.

People ask me if I liked India. I still, 15 years later, do not know quite what to say.